West Bridge Journals

The last time I rode a motorcycle.

The bar pit was about a hundred yards long, and I had backed the motorcycle into the woods as far as I could go on the other side of the road from the pit. I looked both ways down the road to make sure no one was coming and took off. I cross the road and down that side of the pit, shifted gears as I hit the flat ground. Half way across the pit I shifted again and was really moving. A grin came to my face as I went up the far slope and started to fly.

That bike has seen better days. I bought it in Texas when BJ and I were station at Ft. Hood. I rode it to work most days, and wrecked it while there on two occasions and my friend Randy and his wife Karen once. When I left the Army, I brought it home and gave it to our cousin Ronnie, who rode it to school. The bike was parked under the shelter with all the farm implements after Ronnie finished school and went into the Army. It stayed there for several years.

One day while messing around the shelter I had to move the bike to get to something and got to thinking that I might get it to crank. After replacing the old gasoline and cleaning the spark plugs, I finally cranked the engine. I pump up the tires and took it for a spin around the farm. While in Texas, Randy and I did a little jumping with our bikes and I remembered how much fun that was, so I headed down to the bar pit. I would ride up the slopes on the side of the pit and fly for a little ways. As I got more comfortable with it, I would start further back to get more speed and fly further. Finally to get as much speed as possible, I backed all the way out of the pit and into the woods across the road. I had the bike flat out when I went up the far slope. I pull back on the handlebars and really flew further than anytime before, so far that I made it to a pine tree sapling that I had not even come close to before. Thinking that this was going to hurt, I instinctively turn the handlebars to miss the 10 foot tree. The bike and I hit that tree and I continued on for about 30 feet and landed very hard.

All the air was knocked out of my lungs and I was too stunned to move. As I lay there all I could think about was no one knew where I was, and neither me nor the bike could be seen from the road. I finally was able to breathe ok and got to my feet, and was thankful nothing was broken. Except the bike that is. It was beyond riding again, and I let it lay there for several days. I don’t remember what became of it later, but I want to think I gave it to a junk man to haul away.